LHIS 601: United States Labor History
THE SCHOOL OF LABOR AND URBAN STUDIES
CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
Professor: Joel Suarez
Semester: Fall 2020
Email: joel.suarez@slu.cuny.edu
Class Meets: Wednesdays, 6:15PM to 8:45PM
Office Hours: Mondays, 4PM-5PM or by appointment (please email me first)
Zoom Link: https://zoom.us/j/96148498413?pwd=T2JEQjI2ZVEyRDhCVEEwM2s3aHlJdz09
Course Link: https://uslaborhistory.commons.gc.cuny.edu/
Course Overview: This course provides a broad overview of the history of work and workers’ movements in the United States from the colonial period to the present. We will explore labor history as a central piece of the history of American capitalism. The course moves in chronological order, examining debates over the “transition to capitalism,” household and craft labor, the problem of slavery and the promise of freedom, the conquest of the American West, and the tumultuous story of industrialization, deindustrialization, and the ascent of low-wage service sector work that defines our current moment. Throughout the course, we will examine how gender and racial ideology have shaped labor history, how immigration and colonization have transformed both work and workers themselves, and how workers’ movements have contended with and contributed to predominant understandings of freedom in U.S. history. The course’s weekly readings will primarily consist of secondary sources (that is, scholarly interpretations of the past), but we will leave roughly the last 30 minutes of each class to discuss a select set of primary sources (an original document/text or artifact from the period we are discussing).
This course presumes basic knowledge of U.S. history, but students who have not read in American history recently are encouraged to consult The American Yawp (http://www.americanyawp.com/), a reliable free online textbook.
Course Objectives:
- To understand the key developments and evolutions of work and workers’ movements in United States history.
- To understand the major themes in the history of American capitalism.
- To gain critical thinking, reading, and writing skills in history.
- What is critical thinking? It is being able to inhabit someone else’s perspective, identify the underlying assumptions of an idea or argument, and learning how to map out arguments for or against such arguments by seeing their strengths and weaknesses.
Grade Breakdown:
Class Participation (Including Weekly Responses): 50%
Midterm Essay: 25%
Final Paper: 25%
Weekly Responses and Participation:
Active participation in weekly discussions is essential and will have the greatest impact on your grade. Each class, you should be prepared to discuss and debate the readings. To quote a well-known novelist-turned professor, “You are forbidden to keep yourself from asking a question or making a comment because you fear it will sound obvious or unsophisticated or lame or stupid.” If something is unclear or confusing to you about the readings, chances are you are not alone. We will learn together. If you’re in vehement agreement or disagreement with any of the readings, chances are your classmates either share this passion or can learn from you. We will, again, learn together.
In order to prepare for fruitful class discussion, each week two students (called “head posters”) will be required to post a short response to the readings (two paragraphs) on the course site under “Weekly Reading Discussions” by 10:00PM on Mondays before our Wednesday class. Your first paragraph should engage at least one of the readings by succinctly summarizing the key arguments of the text. The second paragraph should then offer your interpretation of the text: Was the article/chapter/book persuasive to you or not? Why? Why evidence or assumptions did you find compelling or wanting? This will be difficult at first but, with practice, it will become easier over time and you’ll get better at it. The other non-head poster students are then required to write a response to one of the head posters’ posts. This response should consist of at least one paragraph that either: 1. explains why you agree or disagree with the poster’s interpretation of a particular reading or 2. draws a connection between different readings in response to the head poster. Additionally, each week, non-head poster responders should also include two or three substantive questions that help think through the themes and ideas of the weekly readings. If there are any readings that are puzzling or confusing to you, identify the text and explain to the best of your ability what was unclear and what you think the author was trying to convey. My motto is simple: writing is thinking. The purpose of these responses is to: 1. help you think through the ideas in the readings, 2. get you to practice and improve your writing, 3. enable fruitful and interesting class discussion, and 4. have a set of notes that can help you for the midterm essay.
Midterm Essay: DUE OCTOBER 21
You will write a 3 to 4-page (double-spaced, Times New Roman 12 point font, 1-inch margins) analytical essay that explains how work and its politics were transformed at the turn of the nineteenth century and into the first 3 decades of the twentieth century. This essay should rely on your interpretation of your choice of course readings up to the week of our October 21st meeting. Additionally, you should also incorporate your interpretation of the select chapters of David Montgomery’s Workers’ Control in America: Studies in the History of Work, Technology, and Labor Struggles (New York, 1979):
- Chapter 1: “Workers’ Control of Machine Production in the Nineteenth Century”
- Chapter 4: “The ‘new unionism’ and the transformation of workers’ consciousness in America, 1909-22“
- Chapter 5: “Whose standards? Workers and the reorganization of production in the United States, 1900-20“
Tips for the essay: 1. Think carefully about how each week’s readings attempt to address distinct kinds of labor and how they were transformed over time. 2. Consider how the authors we have read often either disagree with one another or offer differing interpretations of the past. Incorporate those agreements or disagreements into your analysis of work and labor politics in the pre-New Deal decades. 3. Use at least one primary source that we discussed in class.
For the essay, imagine your audience is smart but non-specialist in labor history, the kind you would find reading The New Yorker. The purpose of this assignment is to provide the reader with a political analysis of how transformations of work are both deeply political processes and themselves transform politics. A good example of this kind of historically informed persuasive essay is Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor’s “How Do We Change America?”
Final Essay: DUE DECEMBER 16th
For the final paper, students will write an 8 to 10-page historiographical essay (double-spaced, Times New Roman 12 point font, 1-inch margins) that builds on your midterm paper. A historiographical essay is a paper that synthesizes multiple scholarly interpretations—typically books but can also include academic articles—of a particular historical subject. Due to the uncertainty of library access and my hesitance to compel students to purchase too many books, I will ask that you write your paper using the assigned readings from the second half of the semester. Your paper should explain what was “The New Deal Order,” how it transformed the nature and politics of work, and then make an argument that explains why and how it fell in the closing decades of the twentieth century.
REQUIRED TEXTS: I have tried my best to reduce the number of books you have to purchase or check out from the library. Nevertheless, there are a few books that will be required for the course. We will not read the entirety of these books, but we will read enough pages to warrant having a physical copy or—when available—a complete e-book. The books are:
- Sean Wilentz, Chants Democratic: New York City and the Rise of the American Working Class, 1788-1850 (New York, 1984, 2004).
- Manu Karuka, Empire’s Tracks: Indigenous Nations, Chinese Workers, and the Transcontinental Railroad (Oakland, 2019).
- Gavin Wright, Sharing the Prize: The Economics of the Civil Rights Revolution in the American South (Cambridge, 2013).
- Ana Minian, Undocumented Lives: The Untold Story of Mexican Migration (Cambridge, 2018).
- Irving Bernstein, The Lean Years: A History of the American Worker, 1920-1933 (Chicago, 2010).
Academic Honesty and Integrity
Students will be held to the highest standards of academic honesty and integrity. Plagiarism of words and ideas will not be tolerated. Please be sure to cite all of your sources should you include quotations or the ideas of others in your writing. If you have any questions about what constitutes plagiarism or what practices are inappropriate, please feel free to bring up the issue in class or in office hours. Be aware of the CUNY and SLU policies on academic integrity:
Academic dishonesty is prohibited in the City University of New York. Penalties for academic dishonesty include academic sanctions, such as failing or otherwise reduced grades, and/or disciplinary sanctions, including suspension or expulsion.
Academic dishonesty is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. Cheating, forgery, plagiarism and collusion in dishonest acts undermine the educational mission of the City University of New York and the students’ personal and intellectual growth. SLU students are expected to bear individual responsibility for their work, to learn the rules and definitions that underlie the practice of academic integrity, and to uphold its ideals. Ignorance of the rules is not an acceptable excuse for disobeying them. Any student who attempts to compromise or devalue the academic process will be sanctioned. Sanctions may include failing grades, suspension and expulsion.
Ground Rules: Nobody anticipated, much less agreed to, all that we’ve been living through since March—social distancing, financial distress, childcare crises, sickness, death, or even online learning. We are living in historic and turbulent times and it makes no sense (and it is arguably unethical) to make pretend as if this is a normal semester in normal times. We must support one another and provide an intellectually nourishing space so that we can all persevere, learn, and even flourish in these intensely uncertain times. We must be humane and kind to one another, and this demands mutual respect and empathy. We must also be understanding and flexible, especially if our current conditions are interrupted once again. Nevertheless, the only way you will learn and get the most out of this class is to complete all the readings and participate in discussion:
- I realize Zoom can be exhausting and that it is sometimes an awkward medium for class discussions. I strongly encourage you to turn on your camera if you are comfortable doing so.
- If you’re attending class from a relatively quiet place, I would also encourage you to leave your microphone unmuted. This will make natural, free-flowing discussion easier. Nevertheless, I have a two-year-old daughter, so I completely understand if it’s best to stay muted unless you are speaking.
- If you have a sudden thought as someone is speaking, I ask that you use the “raise hand” function on zoom so that I know to call on you to speak. If you agree with something that is said in class, feel free to use the “thumbs up” function on Zoom instead of interrupting the speaker. We can discuss more what works and what doesn’t work for class discussion during the first few weeks of the semester.
WEEKLY READING SCHEDULE
August 26: Introduction
- Introductions
- Overview of Syllabus and Expectations
- Resources
- Discussion:
- What is capitalism?
- What is labor history?
- History and Historiography
September 2: Work and the Origins of American Capitalism*
Readings:
- Naomi R. Lamoreaux, “Rethinking the Transition to Capitalism in the Early American Northeast,” The Journal of American History, Vol. 90, No. 2 (September 2003), pp. 437-461.
- James Parisot, “The Two Hundred and Fifty Year Transition: How the American Empire Became Capitalist,” Journal of Historical Sociology, Vol. 30, No. 3 (September 2017).
- Jeanne Boydston, “The Woman Who Wasn’t There: Women’s Market Labor and the Transition to Capitalism in the United States,” Journal of the Early Republic 16 (Summer 1996): 183-206.
GUEST: Sasha from SLU Writing Center.
PRIMARY SOURCES:
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (Philadelphia, 1781), Query XIX
Alexander Hamilton, Report on Manufactures (1791), Chapter 4
September 9: Varieties of Non-slave Labor
Readings:
- Sean Wilentz, Chants Democratic: New York City and the Rise of the American Working Class, 1788-1850 (New York, 1984, 2004), Introduction and Chapters 1-2.
- Herbert Gutman, “Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America, 1815-1919,” The American Historical Review, Vol. 78, No. 3 (June 1973) 531-588.
- (optional/supplemental) Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, “Wheels, Looms, and the Gender Division of Labor in Eighteenth Century New England,” The William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 55, No. 1 (January 1998), 3-28.
PRIMARY SOURCE:
Harriet Robinson, “The Lowell Mill Girls Go On Strike, 1836” http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5714
GUEST: Mason Brown (Librarian) at 7:15PM
IN-CLASS DOCUMENTARY: “Daughters of Free Men” (26 minutes)
September 16: Slavery and Freedom
Readings:
- W.E.B. DuBois, Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880 (New York, 1935, 1962, 1992), Chapters 1-4.
- Thavolia Glymph, Out of the House of Bondage: The Transformation of the Plantation Household (New York, 2008), Chapter 6.
- Barbara Fields, “Slavery, Race and Ideology in the United States of America,” New Left Review, 1/181 (May-June 1990).
- (optional/supplemental) Eric Foner, “The Meaning of Freedom in the Age of Emancipation,” The Journal of American History 81, no. 2 (1994): 435–460.
PRIMARY SOURCE:
“The Happiest Laboring Class in the World”: Two Virginia Slaveholders Debate Methods of Slave Management, 1837.
In-Class Documentary: “Doing As They Can: Slave Life in the American South” (28 Minutes)
September 23: The Work of Conquest and Development
Readings:
- Manu Karuka, Empire’s Tracks: Indigenous Nations, Chinese Workers, and the Transcontinental Railroad (Oakland, 2019), Chapters 3-7.
- Emma Teitelman, “The Properties of Capitalism: Industrial Enclosures in the South and the West After the American Civil War,” The Journal of American History (March 2020), pp. 879-900.
- Rudi Batzell, “Free Labour, Capitalism, and the Anti-slavery Origins of Chinese Exclusion in California in the 1870’s,” Past and Present, Vol. 255 (November 2014), pp. 143-186.
PRIMARY SOURCE:
Oral History: “Philip P. Choy,” Chinese Railroad workers in North America Project (Stanford University)
In Class Movie: 1877: The Grand Army of Starvation (30 minutes)
September 30: Populism and Radicalism
Readings:
- Melvyn Dubofsky, We Shall Be All: A History of the Industrial Workers of the World (Champaign, 2000 abridged version), Chapters 2, 4, 6-12.
- Lawrence C. Goodwyn, “Populist Dreams and Negro Rights: East Texas as a Case Study.” The American Historical Review 76.5 (1971): 1435–1456.
- Charles Postel, “The American Populist and Anti-Populist Legacy,” in Transformations of Populism in Europe and the Americas: History and Recent Tendencies, John Abromeit, et al, eds. (Bloomsbury Academic, London, 2015).
- Leon Fink, “The Great Strikes Revisited,” in The Long Gilded Age: American Capitalism and the Lessons of a New World Order (Philadelphia, 2015), Chapter 2.
PRIMARY SOURCE:
The Omaha Platform
October 7: Freedom and Unfreedom in the Lean Years
Readings:
- Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration (New York, 2010), pp. 8-15, 95-122.
- Neil Fligstein, “The Transformation of Southern Agriculture and the Migration of Blacks and Whites, 1930-1940,” The International Migration Review, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Summer 1983), 268-290.
- Irving Bernstein, The Lean Years: A History of the American Worker, 1920-1933 (Chicago, 2010), Chapters 1-2.
PRIMARY SOURCES:
Robert M. La Follete, “The Danger Threatening Representative Government” (1897)
Herbert Hoover, Campaign Speech, Madison Square Garden, New York (October 22, 1928)
“Can I Scrub Your White Marble Steps?” A Black Migrant Recalls Life in Philadelphia
IN-CLASS DOCUMENTARY: “Up South: African-American Migration in the Era of the Great War” (30 Minutes)
October 14: NO CLASS—CLASSES FOLLOW MONDAY SCHEDULE
October 21: Making the New Deal
MIDTERM BOOK REVIEW DUE!
Readings:
- Lizabeth Cohen, “Workers Make a New Deal,” in David E. Hamilton, The New Deal (New York, 1999).
- Jennifer Klein, “The Politics of Economy Security: Employee Benefits and the Privatization of New Deal Liberalism,” Journal of Policy History
- Steve Fraser, “The ‘Labor Question,’” in Steve Fraser and Gary Gerstle (eds.), The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order, 1930-1980 (Princeton, 1989), Chapter 3.
- (Primary Source): Walter Linder, The Great Flint Sit-Down Strike Against GM, 1936-37, Solidary Pamphlet No. 31. (approx. 40 pages)
PRIMARY SOURCES:
Franklin Roosevelt’s Re-Nomination Acceptance Speech (1936)
In-Class Short Video: Flint Sit Down Strike (1936-37) – UAW History
PRIMER (Not required but useful):
“The Great Depression” in The American Yawp, Ch. 23:
IN-CLASS VIDEO: Opening 19 minutes of Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times” (1936)
October 28: The New Deal Order
Readings:
- Kristoffer Smemo, Samir Sonti, and Gabriel Winant, “Conflict and Consensus: The Steel Strike of 1959 and the Anatomy of the New Deal Order,” Critical Historical Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Spring 2017).
- Kim Phillips-Fein, “Business Conservatism on the Shop Floor: Anti-Union Campaigns in the 1950s,” Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas, Vol. 2, No. 2, (2010).
- Joshua Freeman, “‘Common Requirements of Industrialization’: Cold War Mass Production,” in Behemoth: A history of the Factory and the Making of the Modern World (New York, 2018), Chapter 6.
- Ira Katznelson, When Affirmative Action Was White (New York, 2005), Chapter 3.
PRIMARY SOURCE:
Ronald Reagan, “A Time for Choosing” (1964)
“The American Standard of Living—How Can It Best Be Improved?” Radio Debate Between Senator Robert A. Taft and Walter P. Reuther, President, UAW-CIO:
NOVEMBER 3: ELECTION DAY. VOTE.
November 4: Black Freedom
STUDENTS VOTE ON THEME FOR FINAL WEEK OF CLASS
Readings:
- Gavin Wright, Sharing the Prize: The Economics of the Civil Rights Revolution in the American South (Cambridge, 2013), Chapters 2, 4, 6-8.
- Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, “The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Uses of the Past,” The Journal of American History, Vol. 91, No. 4 (March 2005), pp. 1233-1263.
- David Leonhardt, “The Black-White Wage Gap Is as Big as It Was in 1950,” New York Times, June 25, 2020: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/25/opinion/race-wage-gap.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
IN-CLASS DOCUMENTARY: Documentary: “At the River I Stand”
PRIMARY SOURCES:
Martin Luther King Jr., “All Labor Has Dignity” (Boston, 1963), Chapters 3, 4, 6.
“A Freedom Budget for All Americans”
November 11: New Worlds of Work
Readings:
- Ana Minian, Undocumented Lives: The Untold Story of Mexican Migration (Cambridge, 2018), Introduction, Chapters 1-2, 8.
- Ruth Milkman, “Immigrant Organizing and the New Labor Movement in Los Angeles,” Critical Sociology, vol. 26 nos. 1/2, pp. 59-81
- Nancy MaCLean, “The Hidden History of Affirmative Action: Working Women’s Struggles in the 1970s,” Feminist Studies, Vol. 25, No. 1, 1999.
- Joseph A. McCartin, “Bringing the State’s Workers in: Time to Rectify an Imbalanced US Labor Historiography,” Labor History, Vol. 47, No. 1 (February 2006), 73-94.
In Class Movie: Loose Bolts (Documentary, 30 minutes)
PRIMARY SOURCE:
Studs Terkel, “Ruth Lindstrom, baby nurse” and “Rose Hoffman, public school teacher” in Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day (New York, 1972), pp. 481-489.
November 18: The Fall of the New Deal Order
Readings:
- Jefferson Cowie and Nick Salvatore, “The Long Exception: Rethinking the Place of the New Deal in American History,” International Labor and Working-Class History, No. 74 (Fall 2008).
- Lane Windham, “Signing Up in the Shipyard: Organizing Newport News and Reinterpreting the 1970s,” LABOR: Studies in Working-Class History, 10, No. 2 (Summer 2013): 31-53.
- Gabriel Winant, “Anomalies and Continuities: Positivism and Historicism on Inequality,” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.
- Tim Barker, “Other People’s Blood,” N+1, No. 34 (Spring 2019).
GUEST SPEAKER: Tim Barker, Ph.D. Candidate in History, Harvard University
PRIMARY SOURCE:
Oral Histories: “Jim Hughes,” “Susan Casey,” “Karen Lewis,” in Harry Maurer, Not Working: An Oral History of the Unemployed (New York, 1979), from Chapters 2 and 5.
November 25: NO CLASS—CLASSES FOLLOW FRIDAY SCHEDULE
December 2: The Long Downturn
Readings:
- Judith Stein, “Conflict, Change, and Economic Policy in the Long 1970s,” in Aaron Brenner, Robert Brenner, Cal Winslow (eds.), Rebel Rank and File: Labor Militancy and Revolt from Below During the Long 1970s, Chapter 3.
- Aaron Benanav, “Precarity Rising,” Viewpoint Magazine, June 15, 2015: https://www.viewpointmag.com/2015/06/15/precarity-rising/
- Sarah Jaffe, Michelle Chen, “Work in the Time of Coronavirus: Belabored Stories,” Dissent, Vol. 67, No. 3 (Summer 2020): pp. 125-148.
PRIMARY SOURCE:
Philip Alston, “Statement on Visit to the USA,” United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, December 15, 2017.
December 9: Students Pick Theme (I pick the reading…)
DECEMBER 16th: FINAL PAPERS DUE AT 12PM
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